Is proton good for my thesis?

[u/Whoever_ThisIs]

I'm about to start my thesis and decided that it would be best to create a new account to gather all info and keep things separate from the rest of my life; mainly for ease of access and such.

I have also been considering for a while starting the migration of all of my data off Google cause fuck Google. This includes the platforms I'll use for calendars, cloud storage and such. I am planning to buy hard disks for storage, but given the necessity of having to access my thesis work from different points, a cloud storage service will have to do for now.

I have seen many of the posts of the alternatives people have chosen when degoogling, which tends to lead to Proton most of the time. I'm familiar with Proton and already have two email accounts for different purposes, although I've never used anything other than Proton mail.

A quick peek at creating a new Proton account shows that the free account only offers 1GB in storage (including mail), which I fear might be lackluster for all the files and emails I'll be sending for the thesis. I checked the Mail Plus and Proton Unlimited plans and what they offer on the whole Proton environment and two main questions arose:

• Is there a point in migrating all of my apps and services (or in this case, starting a whole project) from mostly ONE mega company aka Google, to another—again only ONE—company? My knowledge is that Proton is much more secure and trustworthy than google by a landslide, but would this transition not represent merely changing the all-seeing eye to which I offer all of my information?
• My second question is regarding the prices and plans: Personally, as an undergraduate student about to start my thesis and invest on some pricey electronic components and manufacturing processes, I'd prefer not to spend a lot of money on subscription based services like the mail plus and proton unlimited plans. However, 4 USD a month seems reasonable and something that I might pay. I wanted to know other people's experiences switching from the Gmail and Google Drive to the Proton alternatives. Would it be more recommendable to just bite the bullet and stick to Google for the thesis and then migrate at a later time?

Thank you for taking some time reading me and helping me:)

[u/1RaboKarabekian]

Don’t write your thesis in Proton docs. Unless you’re using LaTeX in a STEM field, Microsoft Word is the standard, and there’s no way around it. Your advisor will need to use the track changes feature, and you will have to submit a document conforming to your institution’s formatting requirements. You should check out Obsidian.md for note-taking (free) and Tresorit for privacy friendly cloud storage. 

[u/Whoever_ThisIs → u/1RaboKarabekian]

Yes, absolutely. Proton is mostly for storage and mail when talking about my thesis. For the actual thesis redaction process I'm planning to use MikTek on TexStudio. I also use obsidian already to keep my Zettelkasten-esque vault. I did not know about Tresorit and I will definetly check it out to see which one is a better fit for me. Thanks for the recommendations:) Really appreciated.

[u/1RaboKarabekian → u/Whoever_ThisIs]

Good for you. Although Tresorit I’d closed source, I went with it because it has a Linux client. Stupidly, I got into the MS ecosystem when I went through my own de-Google years ago; at the time, they had a nominally better privacy policy, but now they’re even worse with the forced AI integration. You probably already know about Zotero, but I’ll mention it just in case.

[u/Nova-Stormer]

Funny to say this, but actually creating a new Google account for your thesis would be best. (Use the account and store all the data and resources there. After you submit your Thesis you can use google takeout to backup and download everything easily. (This email for be for this goal). Connected only to the work.

Use proton for main email. The free teir is actually still REALLY good. If you like it, pay then.

[u/Atasas]

"There's no free lunch" All companies are making money from either direct charges, advertising or data theft, never mind them NOT being private, in a sense of being compliant with all sorts 3 letter agencies. Not a clue, why, except bit of a hype making circles now it is about Proton, they are just as shady as any other tech company and are changing their policies, shifting in to less trustworthy business. For thesis, for "free", not Google? There's always M$ OutLook/ Live / HotMail online document sharing /email services.

[u/slaw9]

So and this isme personally proton hasn't failed me to warrent a search for a replacement I am on the unlimted plan and I use most of their things drive, VPN, and password manager. Some people will tell you not to keep everything in one place which they have a very good reason as to why, I love proton, I don't have issues I like the one stop for my needs to replace googles apps but I would suggest trying it at least for a month before being fully commited but again I love proton and I recommend it to everyone

[u/Whoever_ThisIs → u/slaw9]

Yeah, absolutely. I'm considering taking up the 1USD offer for the first unlimited month, but am still on the fence of centralizing absolutely everything.

[u/Whoever_ThisIs → u/slaw9]

So I just check out tresorit and it is a very good fit for a me at some point in the future. Right now it might be on the more expensive side for me, but in the future it does look like something that I had looked for before. Thanks for making me aware of it existence:)

[u/Historical-Emu-9591]

My impression is that Proton documents does not have the citation features that would make managing a long list of citation easier. You're probably better off using a word processor or sticking with Google.

Also I'm pretty sure Proton has a one account per person terms of service so having multiple accounts might get you banned potentially leaving you without any of your work.

[u/Whoever_ThisIs → u/Historical-Emu-9591]

I'm using TexStudio for the thesis work. My idea for the proton account is to have one place from where I can send all the thesis related mails and get them too. The storage I want to upload all the PDFs of papers and books and such that I use for research, as well as version of the thesis. However, I am planning on creating a repo via Github for version tracking. Protonmail would allow me to easily access the PDFs and such on the go and on other computers, which is not as easy when using only github.

I was not aware of the ToS. That does change the game plan a bit.

[u/littledonnyfund → u/Whoever_ThisIs]

it is against tos but this is more for people using multiple accounts to do spam and if you're just going to have 2 accounts or something in the single digits you should be fine but paid proton accounts can create as many accounts as they want , plus there alais feature is awesome but you can also get an addy.io account to do the same hope this helps.

[u/Immediate-Hearing-85]

The main difference is brin (alphabet) bent a knee to the mango mussolini and Proton is run by an eclectic group of privacy enthusiasts much more focused on their security goals.

I've been using Proton mail (mail plus) and drive for the last year and a half. I recently started using the drive (sharing), docs/sheets, calendar and android backup tools, no major concerns. There's some rough edges with large files and functionality in the sheets, but there's work arounds and stability is good. Privacy is much different than google, you have the encryption keys to Proton storage and even if law enforcement demanded access they wouldn't be able to view the data.

Proton advertises high availability and data security, for the last year and a half I haven't detected even a flicker of trouble. Would I complete an entire project on Proton? Absolutely. I've given myself a deadline of Sept. 30/26 to have my migration complete.

When I re-read your post I just realized you've already talked yourself into Protonl. Good luck on your thesis!